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A Not-So-Short Biography
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Tuning the Ukulele, Yonkers, New York - Circa 1955
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\n I was born and raised in Yonkers, New York, a veritable hotbed of\n musical activity. I started my musical career at the age of three when\n my father found an old ukulele in our apartment building's garbage room\n and brought it home and cleaned it up. I hadn't known that my dad was an\n accomplished ukulele player until I heard that first chord he played\n that day, also not knowing that he had a ukulele of his own until I saw\n fit to mistake it for a sitting device a year earlier.\n
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\n That chord is what started it all for me. I was enthralled by that sound\n and immediately whisked myself away from the Mickey Mouse Club and\n begged my dad to show me how to play, too. Since he played only by ear,\n that is what he taught me. Then one day a few weeks later, after\n learning several chords, I pointed out a children's song playing on the\n Victrola (am I dating myself?) and asked him if he could show me how to\n play the song. He just told me, \"Well, you know all the chords it takes\n to play that song already, just listen to the chord changes in the song\n and try playing it with the chords you already know. Thinking it was\n just that easy, it became just that easy, while not knowing that what I\n was doing was something that many professional musicians could not do,\n and so with the naiveté of a three-year-old, I began developing a sense\n of perfect relative pitch and a future of saving a whole bunch of money\n on sheet music.\n
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Band Practice in Yonkers, New York - Circa 1966
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\n\n A few years later, I graduated to my first guitar and a private teacher\n who stressed perfect fundamentals of playing the guitar, which I learned\n is so important to good playing that I have incorporated those same\n principles into my teaching. During this time I had just turned 11 and\n formed my first band \"The Rhythm Five\"; with 2 guitarists, 2 drummers\n and 2 accordion players, we were good at music, bad at math but good\n enough to eventually play at our Elementary School Prom and win 6 local\n talent contests later that year. Soon after that, my first teacher\n explained that I had learned all I could from him, so he sent me to his\n friend and musical partner, Joe DiLillo.\n\n
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\n\n With Joe, I studied theory, jazz and classical guitar for several more\n years, and he also encouraged me to start teaching some beginning\n students myself. Soon I had several little protégés and began to see\n just how gratifying teaching was. About the time I turned 15 I had\n formed an early '60s rock band called \"The Young.\" We had gotten very\n popular in the New York area and eventually recorded for Capitol\n Records.\n\n
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\n\n We also would open concerts in New York area for many of the\n then-current recording stars like The Animals (House of the Rising Sun),\n Ronnie Spencer and The Shangri la's (Leader of the Pack), The Young\n Rascals (Good Lovin'), The McCoy's (Hang on Sloopy), Bobby Vinton (She\n Wore Blue Velvet). We were friendly with another popular band on the\n local scene called \"The Strangers,\" whose lead singer, Steve Tallerico,\n went on to become Steve Tyler of Aerosmith fame. During all this, I had\n continued teaching and expanding my student roster and by now had\n amassed approximately 10-15 weekly students. Through trial and some\n error, I was developing my own teaching methods, some of which I\n continue to use to this day.\n
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Manny's, Manhattan, New York - Circa 2000
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\n\n A few more bands and a whole lot of lessons later (giving and taking), I\n went on to study with the legendary east coast player, studio ace and\n teacher, Linc Chamberlain to continue my musical education. Linc, after\n having me audition, accepted me into his limited jazz-theory study\n classes in Connecticut. Linc was posthumously honored by Guitar Player\n Magazine in 1989 with an article hailing him as \"The World's Greatest\n Unknown Guitarist.\" (Linc passed on in 1984 and is sorely missed.)\n During this time, I was in another high-profile New York band called\n \"Ox.\" We also opened concerts for some more of the big recording acts at\n the time like Chicago (\"25 or 6 to 4\" and many other hits to this day),\n Three Dog Night (Try a Little Tenderness), The 4 Tops, The Temptations,\n The Drifters and others.\n\n
\n\n In 1986, I moved to San Francisco where I continued my studies with\n classical guitar virtuoso Lawrence Ferrara, professor at the San\n Francisco Conservatory of music and at San Francisco City College.\n Lawrence was a student of the world-renowned classical guitarist, Julian\n Bream. I later had the pleasure of performing with Larry at a faculty\n concert at his school, and he later honored me again by playing for my\n wedding ceremony.\n\n
\n\n In 1993, my career as a musician had to take a back seat for a while as\n my primary considerations had to be for my beautiful new son,\n Christopher. I soon entered the computer industry as a manager for the\n Quality Assurance Department of a major multimedia software company. It\n was then that I honed my skills in MIDI engineering and computer\n sequencing while still keeping a small group of students and an\n occasional gig here and there. I played keyboards for a while with a\n local band called Ossum Possum, who enjoyed a fair degree of popularity\n in the Bay Area playing an eclectic mix of everything from bluegrass to\n blues. I continued on until a few years ago when I had the opportunity\n to take an early retirement from the computer field and return to\n teaching full-time.\n\n
\n\n I truly feel that all of my years and experience as a guitarist, a\n guitar student and a guitar teacher can be brought together to provide a\n positive and enjoyable learning environment for any student who wants to\n learn to love playing a musical instrument.\n\n
\n\n Thank you for your time and I look forward to speaking with you soon.\n
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